In this chapter, Elie has now completely adjusted to life within the camp. He still maintains his number one priority as staying together with his father, and keeping him alive. Elie begins to think of his father as a liability, but asks God to give him strength not to do so. On the subject of faith, Elie and the inmates continuously asks God how he could allow this type of cruelty to happen. The moment in which everyone's faith in God, and humanity is truly tested occurs when the Kapos host a public hanging. One of the victims of this hanging is a young boy. Everyone is shocked, as was I. After the hanging, Elie states "Behind me, I heard the same man asking: 'For God's sake, where is God?' And from within me, I heard a voice answer: 'Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows...'" (pg. 65) Hope within the inmates slowly begins to resurrect when they hear that the Russians are closing in in the camps. Everything feels as if it is getting brighter, and when Elie is taken to the hospital, he states that it is a lot calmer. The Russians are within attacking distance, and they actually bomb the camp. But as they wait for the Russians to liberate them, the inmates are forced to flee in the freezing cold snow. As the inmates are forced to run through the snow, many begin to lose their energy. Elie describes on inmate named Zalman as he was loosing the strength to carry on due to stomach pains. When Zalman finally falls behind, Elie states "I don't believe that he was finished off by an SS, for nobody had noticed. He must have died, trampled under the feet of the thousands of men who followed us." (pg. 86) The crowd of remaining inmates then rests in the snow, anxious of what will happen next. Hopefully, the next few chapters will involve Elie and his father's liberation, but at this point, I fear for the survival of one of them. Since Elie is telling the story and is alive today, the obvious choice is the father. I am just trying to imagine the light outside the tunnel at this point.
In the beginning of Chapter 2, Elie and his family have arrived in Auschwitz. They are abruptly thrown into the systematic and compulsory life within the camps. They are first separated from the women, and Elie states "I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever." This is where I knew, things were gonna get dark. Elie advances through the "check in" process of the camp, and he gradually begins to realize the situation he is in. Everything at this point is happening so quickly, and then out of nowhere, he sees the babies. When I read this I realized that Elie's experiences were not going to be censored in any way. I was going to be reading through the gritty realism of what this man lived through. I pretty much put my iPad aside and told myself "I can't read this anymore." I was shocked. I finally began to read again, hoping that some other depressing thing wouldn't be waiting for me at the turn of the page. Elie and his father have been in the camp for what seemed to me no more than four hours, and it was pretty safe to say they had lost their humanity. Yet another change of pace occurs as they are thrown into a line headed to the crematorium. Every moment that Elie describes while in that line chilled me to the bone. Luckily, the main character of the story is in the line so I had some assurance of what would be the outcome. They are then taken to the barracks, where they sort of just gather and make friends with people. Finally, an exhale from the chaos. The next day, they are talked through the basic rule of the camp. Either you work and obey, or you die. Then, Elie's father asks the Gypsy inmate who is in charge if he can go to the bathroom. The Gypsy inmate then proceeds to slap the father in the face so hard he "crawled back to his place on all fours." Elie, instead of retaliating, shows just how much the camp has changed his morals by just watching his father get slapped in the face. And to illustrate the point even more, he does the same exact thing later when his father is beaten in front of him once again, but that time, he just flat out backs a way to not get hurt himself. In 28 pages, I saw that the once ordinary Jewish student from Sighet become A-7713, a teenager who has been stripped from his faith and arguably, his humanity.
How i'll accomplish Bucket list item #10
On Monday, to get the day started off, Mrs. Gunter proposed that we do an exercise in which we say something we are proud of and then say something that we are proud of that another classmate did. As the activity progressed, I noticed that when it was a person's turn, some seemed to be quick when they mentioned their accomplishments. Others seemed to be proud of funny things such as being a #kewlkat. Was it because they were nervous, or was it because they thought they would be bragging if they mentioned something worthy of a pat in the back? I think there is a fine line between pride and bragging. Pride is simply being aware of what you have accomplished and are proud of. Bragging, which can be categorized as arrogance, is a way of attempting to make yourself superior to others. Bragging is at times a desperate attempt to put yourself in a position in which you are not. You brag to make others feel happy for you, while pride is something personal that doesn't require the approval of others for it to be valid. And if you do decide to share something that you are proud of, go ahead, just make sure that in the end if people don't share that mutual feeling of pride towards your accomplishment, that you are will always be proud of it. |
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